New York City was mildly surprising to me, since I associate biking there with those delivery riders who seem to take their lives into their hands daily. But the story notes: “In June 2009, the city of New York reached its ambitious goal of building 200 bike-lane miles in all five city boroughs. In just three years, it nearly doubled the citywide on-street bike network while reshaping the city’s streets to make them safer for everyone.

In Albany, of course, the Bicycle Master Plan is part of the Albany 2030 effort. I’m not sure that the citizens of the city have yet quite embraced it, despite some bike racks here and some road designations there.

9 Responses

There’s a nasty relationship in Albany between cars, bicycles and pedestrians. Albany can’t become a bicycle city until the roads are fixed and it becomes safe for bikes to be in the street, and then it needs to be enforced so that bikes are no longer on the sidewalk, creating danger for pedestrians.

But even bigger than that issue is that the mentality of drivers needs to change. Albany has not even figured out “Yeild to pedestrians in crosswalks”, let alone sharing lanes with bicycles, which keeps bikes on the sidewalks and both cyclists and pedestrians in real and regular danger when trying to share the roads.

I recently visited NYC, not having been there since 2001. The number of bicycles has skyrocketed. There are tons of Ebikes zooming around also covertly. I spent a week in berlin germany and cannot count the hundreds of bicycle brands and thousands of bikes. They are intermingled with car and motorcycle traffic, like a bowl of soup. Flat cities make a big difference

I look forward to the day when I will be able to safely ride a bike from my home in Colonie to work in downtown Albany along Central Ave. That would be a 14 mile bike ride. It would be manageable on a daily basis. Currently I must ride to the bike trail along the Mohawk, through Cohoes and Watervliet, and then down the bike path to the Corning Preserve. This is approximately 24 miles or almost twice the distance that the Central Ave. route would be. However, there are no dedicated bike lanes and anyone crazy enough to ride down Central as it is currently configured is taking their life in their hands. How about a bike trail that parallels the train tracks from Schenectady to Albany? Or would that make too much sense?

Hi Roger,
Some elements are already in place in Albany (which I will define here as being the city proper & surrounding inner-ring suburban hamlets) but event the positive elements are fragmented. To pull it all together, what’s still needed is the right combination of common sense and a recognition by local & state government officials & staff that they have a wonderful opportunity to work together to make whatever investments and land-use/ transportation law changes are required to make it a reality. There are a number of agencies, public authorities and local government- business organizations that are supposed to develop & implement regional priorities, but sadly, when it comes to making needed pedestrian/bicycle/bus mass transit investments, these organizations could be doing far more to improve things on this front.

For example, one of the important “first steps” in making Albany more bicycle friendly was taken by CDTA, which showcased what leadership & vision can accomplish when the authority equipped its buses with bike racks — making both bicycle and CDTA bus commuting more practical AND relevant – especially given how the local weather can change on a dime and the Albany area is rather spread out.

However, a remaining, significant shortcoming of this bike rack initiative is CDTA’s chronic lack of bus service in certain sections of Albany and especially residential areas of inner-ring suburban hamlets like Latham & river cities such as Cohoes. As a result, unless you are up for much longer bicycle commutes, CDTA’s “rack & ride” program suddenly becomes much less useful and relevant. While it’s better than nothing, the bike rack initiative could be so much more of a catalyst for bicycle commuting if CDTA and local/state government leaders showed more creativity (and political courage?) in establishing new funding & zoning requirements (not just suggestions) for residential bus service.

Two things are needed to build these trails: money and organizations willing to build and maintain them.

Dbike, the Patroon Creek Greenway is a proposed trail that pretty much matches what you’re asking for. The general route would more or less follow I-90 from the Mohawk Trail at Exit 26 to I-787 or Tivoli Lake.

Tom M, as long as the state is Balkanized into the 1600 little fiefdoms we call municipalities, I despair of any substantive change happening. “Oh, we won’t work with the Town of X because their supervisor belongs to the red/blue/chartreuse party.”

To add to Ann’s comment, that’s a real issue. The sidewalks aren’t reliably shoveled, necessitating pedestrians in the street and creating a hazard for literally everyone on the road. The plows barely plow the lanes, leaving the streets narrow even for larger vehicles and unreasonable to share. Add to that the frustration and anger that builds up in drivers “stuck” behind a slow-moving bicycle or waiting for enough room to get around a pedestrian, and you can see just how big a problem traffic flow and people moving can be in this city.

Someone mentioned above that CDTA has made some real efforts in encouraging cyclists, but the city of Albany has only paid lip service to cyclists and pedestrians – putting in “Share the lane” signs and bike lane marks in car lanes; putting up “Yield to pedestrian in crosswalk” signs, but only in the park, and not enforcing ANY traffic laws including a lack of signal usage, running red lights, or otherwise creating a safety hazard on the road.

I’d really like to see this discussion really take off. It’s something that I don’t feel people take very seriously. Except for the cars, Albany is a pretty bike and pedestrian-friendly city in terms of walkable neighborhoods and accessibility. The problem is when taking a simple walk in the city means risking your life by crossing a street.

You can’t talk about bikes without talking about cars and you can’t talk about traffic in general without factoring in the pedestrians. The overall culture of the Capital District, though, is focused on cars, often at the expense of safety.